Goin' To The Chapel...And We're Gonna Get Married

Ever since I was a little girl I've always dreamed of getting married. The super-duper, dreamy eyed getting married kind of dreams. Meet a guy, fall madly in love, get married, have babies and live happily every after until death do us part. I mean, it's kinda the way I grew up - in the fairy tale. I loved hearing the story about how my folks got together and Mom always talked to me about my big day...and doing it in a big way.

All through my 20's and now into my early 30's, I've been to dozens of weddings and taken mental notes along the way. I knew what I appreciated about each of my friend's special day and what I would leave on the shelf when it was finally my turn. Now that it is my turn, I've been going through a mental war of the worlds. Big Apple on the big day - close to our church home and our family or destination to escape the drama of well, everything.

What Mom never told me was how much big dreams cost. When I dream, I do dream big. I've always looked at things from the macro perspective and the micro details were for others to kind of work out. Well my macro, costs macro money. To put it plainly, my fiance is a pretty simple and easy going guy. The absolute ying to my yang. The cheese on my burger and the I to my Pod :) His smile automatically lets me know not to worry and things will work out the way they are supposed to. I prayed for him. God told me a long time ago I wold marry my friend. I didn't really get it, but once RK came along, things kinda fell into place. All this to say, RK says "all I want to do is marry you, so, whatever you want to do Kim." Easy for him to say.

When we first got engaged in April, I just wanted to exist and be present in engaged bliss. We started our pre-marital classes a few weeks later and that was an intense journey about marriage in the eyes of God. The tools we took from that deserves a stand alone blog. No wedding planning other than choosing our date 10-10-10. Super poetic, but it wasn't going to work for our Pastor. It means a lot for him to preside over our ceremony...so back to the drawing board.

The summer was moving pretty quickly and my "Ultimate Wedding Planner" book said I need to start with a list. When we first started out with a 250 person list, I had no idea that the number alone was considered a large number. I had nothing to contextualize it until I actually started calling venues. We then separated our list into MUST-SHOULD-WOULD. Well I did that. RK's had a quick 30 people and told me he could cut more if we needed to. We then landed on 75-150 people and packed our bags for Orlando.

While I knew I couldn't entertain Disney for less than $15,000, I still wanted to see what planning my actual fairy tale would be like. We liked it - A LOT but we came back home thinking, let's check out some New York venues because our fairy tale would cost us a lot.

So for the past month, we've been going hard on the venue search. RK and I hve had some cool site visiting adventures and he's been such a trooper. Most NY halls are not trying to see us for less that 100 people...which equals no less that $10G's. Seriously, that's just so folk can eat and drink. UGH, I'm so frustrated. I need a sponsor. I need David Tutera and My Fair Wedding. Now I'm back to going away. A destination with 50 people max, which equals 25 for each of us, and those ten thousand dollars including dinner dancing, ceremony, flights, decor and entertainment.

Seriously, we know that the wedding is just one day and we have the rest of our lives, but I'm so clear that this magical day will NOT be a dream deferred. I just need to stay mindful that I'm not going to be able to please everyone...and I shouldn't try to. This is our day, even though the specifics are going to rest with me, we both know we want to see me walking down the aisle, have our Pastor perform our ceremony, share that magical moment of exchanging our vows and then have a fresh party. We shall see what God has in store :) There's like 365+ days until OUR day.